


Sacrifices

by Harukami



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Gen, M/M, There are some implied pairs in this, and a veiled reference to incestuous sex, but no actual canon romances so I didn't tag any relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 20:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic was requested by an anon on tumblr: <i>Sei and Aoba being the Fatal Frame-style sacrificial twins and trying to escape with everyone's help</i></p>
<p>I haven't played any Fatal Frames games, so I'm going with a general "twins are sacrifices only one can survive the ceremony" concept. This one got quite long and became more of a general AU...</p>
<p>In which Sei and Aoba are raised together by Toue and meet a variety of people who will help them change their destiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacrifices

**.0.**

They are created as a pair entirely so that there would eventually only be one of them. Toue understands the ceremony as well as anyone; he might be able to get fragments of the power he craves with either one of them, but raise them until they're twenty, then kill one -- ideally, have one kill the other, and that's the sort of power Toue excels in -- and the remaining one would have more than double their combined power. And he'd have the tool he needed. Simple, if time consuming.

But Toue has always had time, and they're not the only experiment he has on the go. He finds them funny, however. He keeps their fate no secret from them: "Which of you will live, I wonder," he muses to them and has mused as long as Sei can remember; he recalls being an infant on Toue's knee, Aoba on the other one, and hearing it. "Which of you will die? It will be destiny that decides it, not truly either of you." And then he gives them a treat -- a new toy, a nice dinner, something like that.

He gave them their bodyguards as well -- a pair of children a little older than them with no feelings and no soul. But they aren't so bad to get along with all that considered. It just takes recognizing that they work only on fun. Let them have fun, and it's easy enough to get by. Sei does his best to absorb this to protect Aoba, and it seems to work.

It's hard. There had been two of them to start, and while they remain two, remain a pair of twins, they fragment. There are three Aobas, more or less fully formed people in their own rights; Sei gets to know them well. They don't have names, not individual ones, and they don't ask for any; just as well, since they're all Aoba regardless. Sei thinks of them by what their functions seem to be -- Desire, Reason, Restraint. Reason is the one who usually exists here, the one who Sei knows the best and is closest to as a brother. Restraint is charming as well, in his own way, quiet and careful and very earnest about everything he does. And Desire is... he wants what he wants, and he gets angry easily, and drowns himself in pleasure. What they have is inappropriate at the least, but all they have for so very long is each other, and there's no helping that.

Sei has fragmented too, he knows, albeit in a different way than Aoba. While Aoba gets fuller with other selves, he gets emptier. He loses touch with his body and his mind slips away from all this. It would be so easy to let go. He's thought this so many times. But his connection to his body, the fact he is still living and breathing, draws him back. All he knows is that he must be the one to die, both so that he can finally escape this body, and so that Aoba can live. His precious brother, younger only because it took him longer to come to life when arriving dead into this world. His precious little brother Aoba.

 

**.1.**

They are not the only project that Toue is working on, and Sei meets one of them one day when he's fifteen and out of his body.

He's familiar with the robot series that Toue is developing -- his ability to separate himself from his body seems largely attuned to electronics, but he's drawn to one of them in the particular. Physically, it doesn't stand out from the others in the slightest -- but it's a prototype, and its programming seems a little more haphazard; it's not so difficult to slide in there and say, softly, _hello_ as the robot dresses for the day.

The robot hesitates, and seems to recognize that there is something inside himself that isn't just 'himself'. He goes over to the mirror in his room slowly and puts a hand against it, gazing into his own sunset-pink eyes, and says, aloud, "Hello?"

_I'm Sei_ , Sei says. _I live on the top floor._

"The Master's Sei...?" the robot murmurs.

_Yes. Toue's Sei,_ Sei agrees. _I'm too tired from all the experiments to be able to move, but I was tired of being in my body, so I left. May I ride in you for today?_

There is a moment before the robot responds. Its mental 'space' tastes of coercion and brainwashing, but is otherwise empty, a bit quiet but for the discordant singing. "I don't mind," he says, finally.

So they go through the day like that and, for whatever reason, the robot doesn't report about his uninvited guest. Well, it's not like he's been ordered to, but still--

_Why?_ Sei asks, toward the end of the day.

There's a moment as Sei can see him sorting through and discarding words as he puts the sentence together. "I'm frustrated," the robot says, finally. "With how things are every day. It was new. Thank you."

_I can come back_ , Sei offers. _Maybe we can change things._

"Can I change?"

_That isn't really my ability,_ Sei says. _...But I'm good with programming, at least..._

"Yes..." the robot says, slowly. "I'd like some change."

_That's a clear statement,_ Sei says. _Let's start with a name._

 

**.2.**

They are not the only project that Toue is working on, and when Aoba is sixteen, Desire wanders into the jail cells and finds a boy not much older than them, all in red. Red hair, red eyes, angry red tattoos all over his body. 

He seems angry, despairing, his arms behind him, but lunged as far forward as he can go, sharp teeth gnawing at the bars holding him, saliva pouring down his chin. Desire stops and stares at him. "Hellooooo," he says.

The young man doesn't respond, just pants for breath, angry and bestial. Desire abruptly wants to touch him, wants to contain that rage inside himself, and because he has no reason not to, he slides an arm into the bar to pet those hot red tattoos.

The red man whips around and bites him.

Desire lets out a yelp as those fangs penetrate his flesh, but it isn't pain exactly; this sort of thing is pleasurable in its own way. It's a technique he's learned over the years to endure what they have to go through every day, and the fact that it upsets the techs has always been a benefit. So he coos at the red man, sticks a hand through and pets his shaggy red hair.

"You must be awfully hungry if you want to eat everything in sight," he says.

Perhaps it's something in the gentleness of the touch, but the beast-man recoils from him abruptly and... changes. His hair tints darker, his eyes become normal, and he looks at Desire with shock and horror, blood running down his face.

"Please," he says. "Please go -- leave me here, it's not safe... I'll hurt you."

"Me??" Desire laughs at him, and reaches in again with his bleeding arm. "You can't hurt me. I don't have any pain that isn't pleasure. So come here."

Hesitantly, the other man shifts forward, as if the touch on his hair is the first pleasant touch he's received. It probably has been, from how he's locked up. Desire smiles at him brightly, petting.

"So why are you in here?" Desire asks.

The man swallows. "I was -- this man gave me tattoos which... did something to me. I hurt my family... no, I killed them. When I came to myself, I was in despair. I had nowhere to go... Toue said he was researching methods of mind control and perhaps he could free me from this beast, but he's just kept me locked up..."

Desire wants to keep talking, but Reason pushes him down; the smile fades, though Reason keeps petting the other man's hair. "That's awful," Reason says, in a tone of understanding. "I -- it's awful to be locked up in here."

"Yes," the man says. Then, "I can't stay myself for very long. You have to go..."

Reason shakes his head. "No..." he says. "Stay yourself as long as you can. I want to talk to you more, okay?"

"...All right," the man says, hesitantly. "I'll try..."

"I'm Aoba," Reason says. "What's your name?"

 

**.3.**

They are not the only project Toue is working on, and when Sei is seventeen, Toue learns of Sei's ability to enter machines and interface with electronic fields, he proposes a game named Rhyme. If electromagnetic fields can create their own reality and trap people within them, there is an easy option to enter their minds through a back door. So he creates a game, uses an allmate body as the referee and sends Sei along inside it to project the field and absorb the minds of the participants. Sei doesn't have any illusion this means he'll survive the next three years. Rather, he thinks that it just means Toue has something else to study and to replicate in other ways when he dies.

One of them stands out to Sei -- a boy who can't be more than thirteen, sullen and angry and remote. He seems foreign, with pale ash-blond hair and sharp green eyes and a total inability to show his feelings on his face. But on the Rhyme field he's different, desperate and needy and seems to only develop an ability to express himself there, seems like taking damage only spurs him on to work harder. He doesn't lose.

He also seems to have figured out the formula Sei uses for his appearances around the city, and shows up early to Rhyme matches even if he's not participating, hands stuck in his pockets, chewing on some snack or another.

After a while, Sei's curiosity gets the better of him, and he appears to the boy -- just a projection of himself along electric space, so a glowing outline projected into the visual range. He can't talk much, but he says _Hello. Why do you always come?_

The boy stares at him, no feeling on his face, then lifts his coil and types, monitors appearing around them. "Use this, ghost," he says.

It was that fast. So quickly, he realized Sei's electrical nature. Grateful, he sinks into the projection and types it on the screen instead: Why do you always come to the matches?

The boy considers it. "Because Rhyme is the only thing I have," he says.

Sei knows that feeling. It at least gets him outside, even if it is just for Toue's own purposes. Then you will come again?

"Yeah," the boy says, and Sei thinks that perhaps he will finally make a friend outside of the tower.

 

**.4.**

They are not the only project Toue is working on, and when he is 18, Aoba sees another one of them face to face as well -- both of them tied down for experiments in beds in the same room, albeit different ones. As usual, Aoba is having his voice worked on; implements in his mouth, forcing vibrations through his throat to test the reactions. At times like this, Desire won't -- or can't -- come out to help Reason, but Restraint holds his hand (emotionally, at least), soothes him. If he were alone, it would be unbearable.

The man on the bed across the room is, however, probably alone. He doesn't look like he's from around here, his skin tone and his hair type and his eye color all a little off from what Reason would expect, so it seems unlikely that he'd have many friends or family around to try to return to. 

Reason can't tell exactly what they're doing to him, but it seems to involve a lot of injections, forcing him to inhale a lot of different substances, then scraping his skin, testing his sweat. He does smell strangely, Reason thinks, like some spice. It's kind of nice, actually, different from this weird fake-sterile environment full of human stink. 

When his own experiments finish for the day, he pushes himself up and comes over to the man. His throat aches, but he tries to smile at him anyway. The expression on the man's face isn't indifference but a tightly closed endurance. He's probably not used to this like Reason is.

"Hi," he says, through his raw throat. "I'm Aoba. What's your name."

One gold eye flicks toward him. He's older, but not old exactly; maybe ten years older than Aoba, though it's hard to tell for sure. He doesn't answer.

"Um, my ability's called Scrap," Reason says. "Supposedly, I can control other people with my voice. I don't really have any control over it, however."

The man still doesn't respond, and Reason has a moment of wondering if he can speak any Japanese before he realizes the man's gaze is flicking irritably between his face and the techs' presence.

"Sorry," Reason says, and backs off to wait.

He follows the man back to his cell as he's lead away, waits until security and presence is minimal, and then tries again. "Hi," he says.

The man draws a breath, then lets it out, slowly. His pupils are dilated and he still is sweating like crazy from the things they had been injecting him with. But he seems sane enough. "I don't want to talk to you," he says, after a moment, in a voice that surprises Reason with how deep it is, "unless you intend to take this place down. If you're someone content with being here, having that done to you, I'm not interested."

"...It's not that I want to," Reason says, taken aback. "But I have nowhere to go, and besides, I have to protect my brother. He's a good person, though. When I die and he becomes the inheritor, he'll have all the power Toue could ever want, so he'll make sure you and everyone else gets to go free."

With a snort, the man says, "So it's you or your brother? And you're fine with that?" He reaches through the bars to touch Reason's arm. "If you have an ability like that, use it for your own freedom. Don't be an idiot. Destroy that man, this place."

Abruptly, Desire slams into place, grabs the man's fingers and twines his own with them, and leans in to grin at him. "Fine with that? No. I want to live. I want my brother to live. Let's both live! But if that's impossible, I'll take all the death with me, and I'll have fun as I go. Haha, but I like your idea! Destroying it all, is it? Yes, let's destroy everything, let's smash it to pieces, let's squish it into a pulp."

The man tries to tug his hand back, but Desire doesn't let go, lets the man drag it into the cell instead, and laughs.

 

**.∞.**

When they are nineteen, and about to turn twenty, it is time for the ceremony. Sei insists that he should be the one to go.

"I'm so tired, Aoba," he says, and caresses Aoba's cheek as they curl together, skin to skin, chest to chest. "It's not like you'd be murdering me. All you'd be doing is set me free so I never had to come back here instead."

Reason shakes his head. "...You're so much better than I am," he says. "You're so much better -- you deserve the world. Please, Brother..."

"Besides," Sei says, smiling, "There's three of you and only one of me. It's about the good of the many, too. Can you condemn either of those two?"

_If I may?_ Restraint asks, and Reason steps back; he can feel Desire hovering but he, too, doesn't interfere.

"Brother," Restraint says, and lifts his own hand to cup Sei's. "...What if we both live?"

"That's impossible," Sei says. "Toue would never allow..."

"Toue asks us to kill each other," Restraint says. "He says it's our destiny. But ... I have thought for a long time... That we should take destiny into our own hands. At least, we can try."

"We can try," Sei echoes, though he feels, perhaps, a little selfish for risking other people just for their own useless sakes.

But they do try. They contact the few people they know, people who, even if they are risked, stand to benefit from it as well. There is one other, who is not connected at all, who doesn't stand to gain, only to lose, but it isn't as if he has anything else, either.

The next day, they are brought into the sacrificial room. The prayers are said, they are handed the knives, they are put into the ring, and the music starts to play. There is no escape; he is bound into his body by the ring around his neck, Toue's guarantee against either of them getting out through the use of their abilities. They have to die with their abilities intact for this to work, after all.

The sound is sickening, deafening. His head is splitting. Sei can feel the madness overtake him at the sound, feel his own hand raise with the knife in it, sees Aoba doing the same thing. _Please_ , he thinks, desperately. _Not my brother. Please, everyone, now--_

He's not projecting. There's no way he can be, under these circumstances. But another song cuts in regardless over the speakers. He can hear other sounds over them as well, protesting voices: "Brother, why are you turning against us?" "R-2E-054, Explain yourself!".

"My name is Clear," comes over the speakers, and the singing continues.

Sei drops the knife as the music continues; Aoba holds onto his as if he's forgotten he's holding it, entire face lit up, and Sei grabs his hand, draws him to the door. It's locked, of course, and he pulls at it desperately; then grabs at the ring around his neck. If he could get out of the ring, he could unlock the door, something like that was simple --

He can hear fighting on the other side, then the swipe of a key card. It slides open to a man he doesn't know, but Aoba has described before.

"Koujaku!" Aoba says, delighted.

The man grins around the tattoos crawling over him; he's mostly human right now, though his eyes are a little bright and his teeth a little sharp. "Aoba!" he says back. "What you said last night, it worked out -- I don't know who you got to do it, but those manacles fell right off and my door opened."

"You came here instead of escaping on your own --"

"We're friends, aren't we?" Koujaku says, and wheels to lead the way out. "Come on, we don't have much time! All the cells opened in that block, so the escaping prisoners will attract some attention, but--"

He has to stop babbling as more guards close in, and he turns; he has no weapon, but it doesn't seem to matter; he uses his fists like hammers, swinging a guard into a wall. "Go! Hurry!" he says. "I'll follow you!"

Aoba starts to protest, but they can do nothing but trust Koujaku. Sei squeezes Aoba's hand and they run again. He knows the entire layout of this place; even if he's never left the tower himself on foot, he's left in other ways. 

They're on the bottom floor when Toue steps between them and the long hallway out. "Fools," he says, smiling at them with a certain type of dignity. "Did you think you'd truly be saved? That your actions would change destiny?"

"Seems that way," Noiz says from behind him.

He's not an intimidating figure, standing there in the entrance of the door, skinny and 16 and covered in piercings that don't quite fit his immature face. But he's surrounded by screens and typing furiously; Sei feels the collar fall off him, and hears the same happen with Aoba. 

Toue starts to turn and draw a breath. If he speaks, it's all over; Sei knows that as well as anyone. He begins to draw his own breath to protest, then hears Aoba yell from beside him, voice thick with power,

"Don't speak!"

Toue's eyes widen and his mouth closes. One hand comes to his throat in surprise, like for the first time in their life they caught him off guard.

"Toue," Restraint says. "You've done enough."

Then: "Iiiiidiot," Desire says. "Do you really think that we'd let you kill us?" He flicks Toue off, grinning. "This is the end."

"I stopped him," Reason says, uncertainly. "But now what? We can't just let him continue, but we can't kill him--"

The voices pour out of Aoba's throat one after another, and then a large figure steps up behind him, runs a hand down his free arm, taking the knife he's still holding.

"I can," Mink says.

"No --" Aoba protests. "Mink, you mustn't -- there's no need to become a killer--"

"Worry about your own soul," Mink says, and approaches Toue.

Toue smiles. It's a strange sight to Sei's eyes, that acceptance and pride. It's like, he thinks, it doesn't even matter to Toue whether he wins or not. But Toue says nothing, can say nothing, as Mink advances on him. 

Sei tightens his hand on Aoba and drags him past, grabs Noiz with his free hand as they pass, and the three of them exit into the long hall leading out of the tower.

The door at the end is blocked as well, by two figures. Sei and Aoba both recognize them immediately.

"Virus and Trip..." Aoba breathes. 

"Ya-ho," Trip says. "I see you two've been getting into trouble."

"It's actually pretty impressive," Virus says. "I didn't think you two even could do that. But it's inconvenient. Toue-san gives us a pretty convenient paycheck and lets us do whatever we want, so..."

"So we're gonna have to stop you," Trip says. "Well, one of you was supposed to die anyway. Guess we'll see whichever of you lives the longest and call him the victor."

"Surprisingly clever idea," Virus tells him. "Well, let's give it a try."

Sei has never used his other abilities on anyone before, except when ordered to by Toue as part of tests. What was the point? Creating something was insignificant. It was no sort of attack. But Virus and Trip are engineered to protect them from Aoba's sound waves. As far as he knows, they haven't been altered to protect them from the light rays of his eyes. He draws a breath.

It's probably not the most helpful thing, especially given their personalities, but it's the only thing that comes to mind in the moment. "Love us," he says, and wills it on them.

If it works at all -- if they aren't just responding out of whim -- it works instantly. They stop advancing. "Well," Trip says, thoughtfully, "we do love Sei."

"And we're Aoba-san's biggest fans," Virus agrees. "Oh well. We weren't attached to Toue anyway. Come on, you all."

And that simply, they lead the way out.

Just outside, they stop; Aoba stops them. "Wait, you guys," Reason says. "The others are still inside, we can't go ahead without them."

Escapees are pouring out around them; still, they wait. Noiz is still typing away at his screens, and Sei exhaustedly leans over, extends himself a little to test it. 

"...It's not a bad idea," Sei says. "There's a lot in there that needs to disappear."

"I don't know the layout," Noiz says. "You'll have to provide that." His cheeks are flushed and he looks strangely excited; Sei reaches out and touches him, smiling, and pours the layout information into his Coil. 

Clear is the first of the others to arrive, leaping off one of the high floors and smashing down next to him. It's definitely terminal velocity, but he sits up a moment later. "Sei-san!" he says, delightedly. "We made it!"

"Clear...!"

It takes a while longer, but when Mink and Koujaku arrive, they do so together, Koujaku carrying Mink across his back. The other man is covered in blood and apparently unconscious. "Aoba," Koujaku calls. "I found this guy in there. You said he was one of yours, right? I figured I couldn't leave him."

Aoba runs over, throws his arms around Koujaku. "Thank you," he says. 

Koujaku ducks his head. "I thought about staying myself," he says. "I'm not sure how safe a monster like me is on the streets."

"Your first thought was to save someone," Aoba says. "Never think you're a monster."

Slowly, the traffic from the tower ebbs, then comes to a stop. Sei looks around at them -- Noiz typing away, Aoba bandaging a wound on Mink while Clear gives tips and holds things in place, Koujaku standing guard. Virus and Trip had vanished at some point while he wasn't paying attention -- but, Sei's sure, they'll see them again. 

"It's ready," Noiz says.

"Good," Sei says. "Do it."

Noiz presses a button, and the tower explodes. They're far enough from it to be sheltered largely from the debris, and Noiz had arranged the order of supports falling to force it to largely collapse inward, but it's still a ground-shaking affair, dust kicked up everywhere.

Sei, exhausted, sinks to the ground and sits there. "Now what?" he asks, finally.

Aoba looks up from the bandage he's made of Clear's uniform. "Now we live, I suppose," he says, and Sei isn't sure which of him has said it. 

Perhaps it's all of him.


End file.
